With this Supplement Issue 3/2012, of our CIRPIT REVIEW, the Intercultural Center dedicated to Raimon Panikkar intends to follow up the
annual publication of Proceedings of national and international Conferences, on those topics dear to Raimon Panikkar, which gave birth to the Review:
pluralism, interculturality and dialogue. In particular this Issue contains the Proceedings of the Conference held in Fairfax (US-VA), at George Mason
University, in April 2011, entitled “Rhythm and Vision Conference: In Memory of Raimon Panikkar”. It was attended by representatives from
many countries, including the United States, New Zealand, India, Australia, Japan, and Italy.
Various countries with different cultures, experiences and languages, joined together for a reflection, not of universal intents, but just of sharing.
Similarly to the multicolored fragments of a beam of light split by a prism – to use a metaphor – we face reality in the specific color of our perspective.
But not knowing where the prism finishes (and no tower of Babel can return it to us), we need to draw close to one another to try to make the whole idea
of how incredibly colorful and harmonious reality is.
We do this through ideas, that is, through our languages which are symbols, aware that no clear conceptual understanding, nor any exhaustive
linguistic translation is possible, but only an intercultural meeting. According to the aforementioned metaphor, as no color can be represented
by another, so no language (and therefore no idea) can be exactly expressed by another.
Therefore, if our effort is directed at the expansion of our mythical space through our opening to other linguistic (and theoretical) horizons – an
attempt that the CR summarizes in the background words of the cover: pluralism, interculturality and dialogue, expressed in the authors’ different
idioms – nonetheless we are aware that our effort is not an achievement. An awareness that, at its best option, lets those ideas be expressed in their own
original linguistic context: hence the choice – that the CR has been carrying on since its foundation – to publish the Proceedings in the Conference
Paolo Calabrò
CIRPIT Editorial Director
